


Shattered

by DivineValley



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, POV First Person, Reconditioning, Self-Reflection, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 23:43:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14031450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineValley/pseuds/DivineValley
Summary: Shepard reflects on what life is like as a reconditioned trooper.





	Shattered

How can you describe it? How can something like this be explained unless you’ve experienced it yourself?...I hope no one ever has to...I know it’s probably happening right now. As we speak back on Kamino it’s happening to some clone, they bring him to the white room and they...they just...indescribable.

Imagine that your mind is a glass cup, the cup is filled with your memories, your feelings your emotions and soul. Everything that makes you, you. They take that glass and they throw it onto the floor. Everything about you is destroyed and they gather up the shards, haphazardly gluing them back together. It’s not the same, yes the pieces came from the same glass but it’s not...it’s just not the same.

It’s empty and hollow, it’s not right. You could put the pieces back perfectly if you’re careful but when you look at it, when people look at it they know it’s been broken.

Everyone knows I’ve been broken.

Insufficient is the word they use, I was performing insufficiently.

They never told me what it was. What had I done wrong?

Why was I broken? Tell me what was wrong with me.

**_Tell me._ **

**_What did I do wrong?_ **

I’ve encountered others like me back when the tests were being run, others who have been wiped clean. We weren’t all the same. Some were aggressive, some couldn’t speak, some seemed incapable of function even. We’d all be together in that white room with the doctors overseeing us. Performing their tasks, connecting us up to machines with sharp needles and wires with drugs pumping into us or blood flowing out.

Comparing the different methods of reconditioning. There must be so many...so many ways they can take a mind and twist it into something else. Into the weapon, they long for.

They’d monitor for imperfections, deviants in the design. There was one I remember, he was far too angry, he didn’t understand what was happening. None of us did but he was the most vocal. I remember him grabbing me, shaking me and asking why were we here.

Why were we here? We’re broken that’s why we’re here. He didn’t mean that though.

“Why do we exist?!”

To serve the Republic, good soldiers follow orders. I told him that and he seemed to crumble, he began to scream and claw at his head until he was taken away. He never returned to the white room.

Erased completely.

Some of the normal clone troopers ask what it’s like, how does it feel to be reconditioned. I’ve never answered, the question makes me feel strange. I hate it. I hate how it makes me feel. It makes me aware of what I am.

**Empty. So very empty.**

**Blank.**

At times it’s as though I am in no control of my body. It goes through the motions and I am simply a passenger. There are no memories to escape to, fond times with brothers like the stories I hear others speak of.

I hate sleep. I try to resist sleep but my mind does not fight when it calls. I am in nothingness, drifting in darkness waiting to open my eyes again. When I finally dream I never remember them, there is color and muffled sound...images from a time before? Is that possible?

Was there anything left?

I see someone, I see him standing by a large window there’s nothing but stars behind him. I speak to him or maybe he speaks to me? His face is blurred and voice so far. He is important but I cannot reach him. When I wake he is gone and I cling to what little I can remember from these dreams.

A window.

Stars.

A promise of something.

Someone who was important.

They took him from me, they took everything from me but he, he had been so important, he was so important and they took him from me. Scraping away all that was in my head and leaving nothing. I am nothing now.

**Get out of my head, get out of my head, leave me alone.**

Why did you do this? What have I done wrong?!

Why not destroy me?

Nala Se, she once told me I was granted mercy, I don’t believe she knew I was listening when she spoke. This was my second chance to prove I was no flawed, that I could be perfect.

Can I be perfect? Is perfection in the realm of possibility for any living thing? It’s illogical, nothing is perfect there...there is no such thing. Had they not designed the clone army to be perfect and yet why were there so many of us deemed broken? Perhaps the flawed ones were their own creators? Though no clone could ever say such things aloud or else they’d end up just like me.

What is it like to be reconditioned? It’s like being shattered into a million pieces with no hope of ever being repaired. You will never be the you that came before. That person is long dead, you are a but ghost now trapped in the shell that is your body.

...But not all hope is lost...because new memories are made. Each day a memory is created, it can be something so small such as learning how to play a card game again. Being taught songs the vode enjoy singing while marching or how to haggle for an extra serving for dinner.

It can be something life changing such as being gifted a new name with true meaning behind it. Finding friendship in others who look at you not with pity but genuine happiness as they throw their arms around you offering smiles.

Meeting someone you want to protect because the very core of your being tells you this is someone you want to protect.

Someone who is so very important.

Yes, I am shattered, I am broken but I am far from destroyed.

 


End file.
